In November 2018, two climate activist groups crashed onto the public stage. In Washington, DC, the Sunrise Movement occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office, demanding a Green New Deal (GND). In central London, Extinction Rebellion (XR) seized five bridges, blocking traffic with their camps and getting arrested at an even faster rate than Sunrise.

A month earlier, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report had declared that humanity had only twelve years to act to limit ecological catastrophe. Student strikes led by Greta Thunberg were kicking off across the world; it felt like a new era in climate activism.

Both Sunrise and XR engage in nonviolent direct action, and much of their activity is run by semiautonomous local chapters: Sunrise has over four hundred “hubs” in the United States, while XR has nearly five hundred in Britain and dozens of other countries. Yet they follow starkly different approaches to politics. XR has stayed mostly on the “outside,” pushing for change through protests and cultural renewal, while Sunrise has combined such actions with direct political involvement.